The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
With advances in integrated circuits and computing technology, wearable computer devices, such as smart watches, are becoming increasingly popular. As with all computer devices, especially with recent increase in interest in privacy and data security, it is desirable or even necessary to authenticate a user before allowing a user to access a wearable computer device.
Previously, most mobile computer devices, such as smart phones use passwords, personal identification numbers (PIN) of 4 to 6 digits, or patterns traced on a displayed 3×3 dot matrix. The disadvantage in porting and employing these approaches on computer devices worn on the wrist, such as smart watches, is that these approaches require a hand to touch the screen of the wearable computer device to type in characters/numbers or form patterns. Necessarily, the hand touching the screen has to be the other hand opposite to the wrist wearing the computer device. Often times, the user's other hand may be busy, and thus require extra effort of the user to authenticate himself/herself before the user is able to gain access to the wearable computer device, and perform the desired function.